Enjoyed this interview with Horner. 

http://www.bicycling.com/chris-horner-diaries-stage-16#/video/2012_tour_de_france/created/d/1

I like how he's so completely shelled he's fumbling to formulate words and the wattage part at the end is interesting.

"325 watts normally you can do that in your sleep"

"325 watts normally you can do that in your sleep"

Heh.  Yeah.  Someday...

Really? No big thing. I have an active dream life, though.

Barry has a piece on the increased number of crashes.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/tourdefrance/article/1019070--barry-pushing-the-limits-in-the-peloton

I've heard Mike Barry is a great guy from many people.  That acknowledged, I find his writing disappointing.  What he's shared here is stuff many of us know.  He uses florid language to describe something that countless amateur racers could describe better.  He rarely gives up any valuable insight.  I think the only thing that anyone with decent familiarity with racing could learn is that he believes a max of 20 riders can fit in an echelon on these roads. 

OK, I'm convinced. I agree that it was pretty polished, in a homesy sort of way. I spent like all day editing 3-4 pages of my grant proposal and that just produced another draft for later review. Needless to say, I didn't do much riding.

Based on the earlier profane interview response from Wiggo, he isn't naturally mellifluous.

I think Barry writes for himself; I correspond with him pretty regularly and the tone & style of his emails are all in line with his later writing (the earlier postal bus stuff is clearly just someone learning.)

Jules,

Funny...Barry never mentioned the blood transfusions inside the postal bus in his book, "Inside the Postal Bus".

I gotta agree with JP on his assessment of Barry's writing. I mean, we all know that JP writes for a living, and some of you may know that I used to too, so forgive me for chiming in with my persnickety point of view.

As one of the first pro cyclists to get a column for public consumption, Barry's been at this game a long time. I'm constantly underwhelmed by his work. It's over-written. Most of his pieces are epic works of empty poetry that ultimately tell me nothing. It kind of reminds me of Phil, Paul and Bob's style of race commentary/play-by-play. Those guys talk and talk and talk and fill the space with nothing. Even when they are saying something, it's convoluted and tortured and clipped of important context to the point of near total incomprehension.

Give me a clunky sentence with real insight and/or information over something that might be technically better written, but offer me nothing of substance.

Obviously, Barry is writing to a more general audience in this latest column, but that doesn't totally make up for the fact that I think this column reads like the throaty über-gravitasy television promo/intro script for an episode of the tour's daily broadcast.

Here are two samples. Which one is Barry, which one is Bertucco imitating Barry?

"The Tour is the race they’ve dreamed of since they were young. After months of preparation, the anticipation, angst and pressure will not only inspire performances but it will also cause crashes."

"In a world...where the rough bristles of a dying conifer, collides with the smooth skin of living men, one bike racer stands above them all..."

I think probably JP and I are holding Barry to too high of a standard, but from a fan's point of view, it was really frustrating to eagerly click through Velonews to read an insightful column about that day's Tour stage (or training camp or whatever) and instead get stuff like this:

"We cut through olive groves, which are walled by kilometers of ancient stone. As the group snakes through center of the small towns, school kids gaze and old men stare. Our colorful uniforms, carbon bikes and polished team car brightly contrast the historic beige stone buildings that surround the plaças"

While I actually like the phrase "old men stare" something about how it sits within the context of the Velonews column, just makes me want to pull my hair out and puke a little in my own mouth. And look, I've certainly written my fair share of saccharinely sweet sentimental drivel, but I do make an effort to include some actual meat along with the frothy essence of bike racing.

Grrr...shouldn't write these things late at night. I sound like a prick. Barry and whoever should write whatever they feel like writing. If I get frustrated, it's because here are people with the potential to offer real insight. Anyway...keep on writing everyone, all you pros and what-nots. And I'll try to make sure my stuff is better too.

Marc, I have similar sentiments about Barry's writing sometimes - but if I need to forward an article about a race to my mom I will always choose Barry's first. 

He doesn't assume any cycling knowledge on the part of the reader and there is precious little of that out there.

Much of cycling writing is very "insider" and is essentially targeted at an already narcissistic wannabe (or ex) pro readership.  Myself included.

Reading about how as a boy Michael used to come home from school to hop on the rollers in the garage and watch the ice on the windows slowly melt or ride through the Toronto snowstorms in his school uniform pretending he was on the Roubaix cobbles seems more accessible to me than kvetching about Tom Danielson's squandered potential or making jokes about which of Levis pets has become owl-bait most recently.

He isn't reprinting twitter or transcribing video interviews (one of my pet peeves) he seems not to be writing about races or racers so much as he's trying to write about the sport.  These are my opinions, of course.

Sadly we can't all write like Krabbe but I won't fault (or mock) him for trying - and I hope others will afford me the same generosity as I try and ride like my favorites.

One last note: in the summer of 2009 I had a very bad crash going downhill in a race.  Long after my body had healed I rode and raced with a level of terror that felt very unusual.  Just imagining downhills filled me with dread and I often remembered or thought about the crash.  I worried it was "only me" and this crash had revealed something about me that made me intrinsically unsuitable to race bikes.

Barry is the only person I've read to write candidly about crashing as a pro and his similar experiences of reliving the sights & sounds, worrying about races to come and the concern of his family & friends. 

Through all the over-worked writing this candor sticks with me.

Came across this story and buried in it is the lengths Sky goes for "marginal gains" (their term, sorry I got it wrong)

Last year they were mocked for driving a giant truck full of mattresses around.

Having your own mattress, ac units, good rest is HUGE. I'm sure others would do it, if they could afford it. I've said this before, but when I was fully rested due to like 5 weeks off of work last fall, I had 30-40 extra watts, with no increase in perceived rate of exertion. Just because I was rested.

last year, they should have been mocked for Wiggins riding in the middle of the peloton on flat stages.  

an interesting video on Sky's service course. if you got to 1:34 they have what they call "Performance Support" which includes bedding, ACs, Humidfiers, HEPA filters and other things for the hotel rooms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIhXErMnzoo

Wiggo is still a bore who has never (that Ive ever read) given credit to JV/Garmin for taking his mediocre underperforming performing self and turning him into a rider who could. He acts like he has been this tour and stage race winning guy all along. So does Sky for that matter... cant have it both ways 

Barring some high drama in the time trial this is likely to go down as one of the boringest, least satisfying tours in a long time - from a fan's perspective.

I'm starting to side with the "same number of teams, only 5 riders each" camp.  That would certainly make for some exciting racing without mangling the parcours beyond recognition.

Not sure that would help.  That's essentially what Sky have done.  Sioutsu(?) crashed out after a few days.  Cav and Eisel have just been hanging about trying to get to Paris, leaving them with a team that is Rogers, Porte, Boss-Hag., Froom, Wiggins = 5.  Not really sure what Kristian Knees has been up to.  He probably helped though I guess.

This tour is almost as boring at the Sastre win one.  Actually, it's worse. At least he threw down at the end and had the TT of this life to seal it.

It was hilarious seeing Froome kvetching with Wiggins to HURRY THE FUCK UP so they could grab the stage.  Vaughters had a good tweet about it, something along the lines of either attack and overtake Valverde, or tow Wiggins.  Two feet in or two feet out.  What he ended up doing, possibly wisely for contract's sake, is show that he could have won this tour, and that he is a much better climber than Wiggles.  But at the same time, he pretty much showed him up.  I just don't get why Wiggles (other than fear and ego) didn't say "go get it".  He'd still be in the lead, coming in less than a minute down, and will do slightly better in the last TT.  I guess that's it: he didn't want to risk having less than a minute lead going into the TT and having his teammate best him. 

But it's clear to see that Froome should have, or could have, won this tour. And with his freaky parasitic blood eating worm disease flaring up on occasion, I can see why he's frustrated.  He needs to take the opportunities he has when he can.  I just hope he uses "cunt" a lot in his press conferences next year as a team leader too.

I'm soooo bored with this race. I think Tejay is the best story so far, overtaking Evans in the GC.

lulz

you know how people hate Voeckler because of his faces?

The best part of this tour is the Armstrong news.

That was a classy leadout by Wiggo, this is the first time in ages I've found myself rooting for Cav

The *total* domination by sky does reek to high heaven of juicing - I can only hope their new training regime will work for 42 year old Cat 4's as well...

Those folks look pretty well-to-do. I bet his lawyers could at least win the little girl's college fund.

I like how the dog appears to be sticking his tongue out at Gilbert, as if saying "your season has sucked compared to last year. Do you miss your special doctor that's with Omega Pharma now?"

A question: why did Nibali agree to rejoin the peloton after making it up to the break the other day? I realize this would have caused the peloton to chase like maniacs, so maybe such a tactic would have been futile - but why not at least give it a shot? None of his attacks were making a dent - he was finally away (not by much but still) - so why cash it in just to give Valverde his shot at the stage?